Passions Flare as Broadcast Of 9/11 Mini-Series Nears

Published: September 8, 2006

Under growing pressure from Democrats and aides to former President Bill Clinton, ABC is re-evaluating and in some cases re-editing crucial scenes in its new mini-series ''The Path to 9/11'' to soften its portrait of the Clinton administration's pursuit of Osama bin Laden, according to people involved in the project.

Among the changes, ABC is altering one scene in which an actor playing Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser, abruptly hangs up on a C.I.A. officer during a critical moment in a military operation, according to Thomas H. Kean, a consultant on the ABC project and co-chairman of the federal Sept. 11 commission.

Mr. Berger has said that the scene is a fiction, and Mr. Kean, in an interview, said that he believed Mr. Berger was correct and that ABC was making appropriate changes.

The reassessment came as two Clinton aides mounted an unusual attack last night on the motives of Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey. In a letter to Mr. Kean, the two aides, Bruce R. Lindsey and Douglas Band, wrote that his defense of the mini-series ''is destroying the bipartisan aura of the 9/11 Commission,'' on whose findings the project is partly based. They asserted that Mr. Kean was driven by payments from ABC or his own partisan politics.

Mr. Kean, who called Mr. Clinton a good friend, said it was outrageous to suggest he was being swayed by money or politics, and added that any fee he received would be donated to charity. He said he stood by the film because he believed it would draw attention to the commission's security recommendations, many of which have not been put into effect, and because the film did not pretend to be a documentary.

Yet Mr. Kean, as well as other members of the commission, did say they were concerned that their widely praised investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks might be diminished in some way by the mini-series.

''Mini-series often make things more dramatic by fictionalizing,'' Mr. Kean said. ''I don't think the fictional moments reflect on the work of the commission, but I do hope that the controversy doesn't tarnish it. ABC is trying to be as accurate as possible.''

Democrats and allies of Mr. Clinton unleashed full-throated appeals to ABC yesterday to cancel the broadcast, which is scheduled for Sunday and Monday nights. The Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, ABC's parent, saying that broadcasting the film ''would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility.''

The national Democratic Party drew more than 100,000 signatures in 24 hours to a petition of complaint that it plans to give to ABC today.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, one of 10 senators at a news conference yesterday where the mini-series came up, left before she could be asked about it. A small throng of reporters who followed her out of the building toward her office were kept at bay by her aides.

The changes to the mini-series are still being made inside an editing suite in Los Angeles, with a variety of creative staff members and executives, including Marc Platt, the executive producer, who has been monitoring the editing from London, and David L. Cunningham, the director, who is being consulted at his home in Hawaii.

Mr. Kean said that two other parts of the film are also under review. One is a scene where an actress playing former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright is apparently obstructing efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden. The other part suggests that Mr. Clinton was too distracted by impeachment and his marital problems to fully focus on Mr. bin Laden.

Mr. Platt said that he could not offer specifics about what scenes were being examined, but that editing was going on and ''will continue to, if needed until we broadcast.''

''From Day 1, we've examined any issue or question that's arisen,'' he said. ''And we'll continue to do so until the last possible moment.''

Mr. Kean said he was surprised by the outcry, since most of the critics have not seen the film. He said Mr. Clinton had spoken directly to Mr. Iger last Friday; Clinton aides declined to comment.

Several 9/11 commission members said yesterday that they respected Mr. Kean immensely but that they were concerned about the ABC project and his role in it. One of them, Timothy J. Roemer, a Democrat, said he called Mr. Kean yesterday to urge ABC to make changes. Another, Jamie S. Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official, wrote Mr. Iger yesterday that the nation and schoolchildren would be poorly served if they drew lessons from the mini-series that were inaccurate.

Scholastic, the children's publishing company, which had been working with ABC to use ''The Path to 9/11'' as a teaching tool, said yesterday that it was removing materials related to the film from its Web site. A spokeswoman said a new study guide was being prepared that would explain the difference between a docudrama and a documentary.